The Farmstand Nook by Lettuce Grow - by Pip Tompkin and Pump Studios / Core77 Design Awards (2024)

The Farmstand Nook is a vertical hydroponic growing system on which you can grow vegetables, fruits, greens, herbs, and flowers. Self-watering. Self-fertilizing. Modular. Easy to use. The Nook brings fresh harvests back home. Raise up to 20 plants at once. With less water, less carbon, less waste, and less stress. The result is delicious produce that's simply more nutritious.

LettuceGrow is a company dedicated to fundamentally changing the way households get their fruits and vegetables; reduce our carbon footprint, reduce global water consumption, and provide healthier, more nutritious and tastier food for our families.

The Nook provides a sustainable, convenient, affordable growing system. Designed to grow fresher food indoors, meeting the needs of a larger demographic for markets around the world.

The Nook is the second growing system from LettuceGrow, following on the success of the original Farmstand. The original was primarily designed to be used outdoors and is used in both domestic and commercial settings. The Nook is designed to be smaller, more versatile, and is primarily designed to be used indoors, making the product more accessible to more users in more places around the world; helping LettuceGrow fulfill its dream of a healthier, more sustainable, decentralized food supply chain.

By removing the biggest costs in the legacy food system (shipping, warehousing, packaging, etc.), we make it affordable and sustainable for anyone to grow fresh, healthy produce from the comfort of their homes at a fraction of the cost. One $3.99 seedling can grow; $50 of tomatoes, $30 of eggplant, $16 of Basil, or $7 of Romaine. Growers can harvest up to $1,500 of produce every year, in their own homes with no use of pesticides.

50% of nutritional value is lost by the time a fruit or vegetable gets to the store. And 52% of farm-grown fruits and vegetables are wasted, due to: losses at the farm, in transportation, handling, and fruits and vegetables not selling and being thrown away by the store. With the Farmstand Nook, you harvest nutrition-filled produce when you need them. Through this process, less commercial and household refrigeration is needed, while eliminating mass food waste.

As of January 2023, Lettuce Grow is responsible for 4,013,564 plants and vegetables being grown in households across the United States. Farming is responsible for 70% of global water consumption. 40% of that water goes to waste due to mismanagement. As of January 2023, Lettuce Grow helped save 133,784,129 gallons of water. The Farmstand Nook, in its design, is 98% more efficient in its water management than a farm-grown fruit or vegetable.

The design of The Nook is both highly functional and exceptionally beautiful. The form is true to the brand built with the original, and even more refined, as the Nook needs to fit into any home.

We have integrated design thinking at every level with the nook, to cultivate a close relationship with the user. This thinking includes any instructions or messaging. To make the experience of owning a Nook fun for everyone, we developed several plant-based puns which we use throughout the product.

Just as in the Farmstand, a water management system provides water and nutrients evenly to each plant in the system, which is then captured in the tank and re-cycled up through the system. Light has been carefully considered, providing the plants just the right amount of light throughout their entire growing cycle. A carefully designed spectrum of light comes from LEDs housed in five elegant stalks and arranged between plants, allowing the user easy access to the plant for harvesting.

The lights and modular elements of the system make up an unbroken form, but still allow the entire kit to be packed down into the tank, which includes an integrated cable management feature, with the lid seamlessly enclosing the packaged product for storage or shipping. The parts of the Nook are all made from food safe Polypropylene and Polyethylene in a satin finish. The materials are selected because they are exceptionally stable, resistant to staining and degradation over time, and prevent unwanted contamination of the plants and water. Material selection, along with the smooth finish, help keep the Nook clean, and free from dirt or bacteria.

In the original Farmstand alone, 176,049 Pounds of Ocean Bound Plastic have been upcycled. The Farmstand Nook builds on this goal of using high recycled content and because the Nook is designed to pack into its own base (greatly increasing shipping efficiency) Lettuce grow has achieved an even more sustainable supply chain. Lettuce Grow has saved 2,725,210 Pounds of Carbon, primarily due to farming machinery, transportation, and industrial refrigeration. By packing efficiently into the largest part of the Nook (the tank), the carbon impacts of shipping are even further reduced.